


it takes an ocean not to break

by flybbfly



Series: everyone wants a glimpse of the sea [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, break up fic, throbb - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:10:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybbfly/pseuds/flybbfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When they meet again, Theon smiles less, has longer hair, and always wears gloves, and Robb has picked up smoking and the inside of his throat always feels raw from his girlfriend's menthols."</p>
            </blockquote>





	it takes an ocean not to break

>>.  
  
When they meet again, Theon smiles less, has longer hair, and always wears gloves, and Robb has picked up smoking and the inside of his throat always feels raw from his girlfriend's menthols.  
  
 

<<.  
  
“I get New York City,” Robb says. “Boston. Chicago.”  
  
“Fine. I get Florida.”  
  
“Why the fuck would you want Florida,” Robb starts to say, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch upward, but then his gut twists painfully and he shuts up.  
  
“I want Michigan,” he says instead. “And Toronto.”  
  
“I want the Great Lakes.”  
  
“How is that supposed to work?”  
  
“You're a clever boy. You'll figure it out.”  
  
“Fine,” Robb says. “But I get Europe.”  
  
“You can't have _all_ of Europe. It's an entire fucking continent. I want Spain.”  
  
“But I get England and France.”  
  
“If you get England, I want Scotland and Ireland.”  
  
“I'm fucking Irish.”  
  
“You're from fucking Chicago,” Theon retorts.  
  
Robb glares at him across their table. Or Theon's table. Or his table. He doesn't know—they haven't split up western Massachusetts, where their apartment is situated.  
  
“I want the west coast,” Robb snarls. The west coast is Theon's, but Theon doesn't object.  
  
“I want the Pacific Ocean.”  
  
“I want the Atlantic.”  
  
“Fuck that, you don't,” Theon says. “You can have Ireland, but I get the Atlantic.”  
  
“You can't have _all_ major bodies of water.”  
  
“You can have the Mediterranean,” Theon says, and then seems to hover in the decision. “No, wait,” he says. “You can have the—Indian.”  
  
“I don't want the fucking Indian Ocean,” Robb says. “I want Brazil.”  
  
“I get Japan.”  
  
“I get China.”  
  
“We can contest the islands.”  
  
Robb thinks Theon is making a joke, but he doesn't think he has it in him to laugh at Theon's jokes anymore and it sits in the air between them for a moment until Robb says, “I want Iran.”  
  
 

<<.  
  
They travel together all the time, take ridiculous backpacking trips across Europe that have them sleeping in roach-infested hostels and crashing on strangers' couches; find various ways to rally in the Middle East, hit Amman and Dubai and Tel Aviv for partying and Petra and Abu Dhabi and Damascus and Jerusalem for history; go on safaris in South Africa, hiking in North Africa, lie on beaches in Morocco and Tunisia, see the pyramids in Egypt. They take ridiculous pictures, with Theon pretending he's holding the leaning tower of Pisa between his fingers and Robb riding a camel, Theon grinning around a cigarette in a bar in Jordan and Robb sweating through his clothes after a hike, Theon and Robb together in a pub in London during a North London derby, drunk off cheap beer and the tribalism that sports bring about in males in the picture that Theon will make his facebook cover photo and forget to change until weeks after they split up, Theon and Robb together in front of the Eiffel Tower in the most couple-y photograph ever taken of them, the one that will sit on Robb's desk at work until he unceremonially tosses it in his trash can.  
  
But their first trip together is a short one, from Amherst to Boston, and they're with a gaggle of their friends at a Red Sox game, breathing in the way Fenway Park could make a blue-blooded Bronxian into a Sox fan if he was left there long enough.  
  
They end the night trying to find a bar in Boston that doesn't card, and eventually settle on a seedy pub that closes at 2 am but which introduces them to three guys who drag them back to their place for a post-game party.  
  
It's on the train ride back to Amherst that Theon's head first falls against Robb's shoulder. Robb inhales the scent of Theon, the mix of Old Spice and sweat that feels shockingly familiar to Robb even after only half a semester of knowing him.  
  
Robb shifts, and Theon's head finds a more comfortable position against him and Theon falls asleep. Robb does not. The dynamic will shift, later, when Theon will find himself always wide awake on train rides across India while Robb sleeps tucked against him, but for now Theon is one sleeping and Robb is the one staring out at the endless landscape of trees before them.  
  
   
  
>>.  
  
He is different, when they meet again.  
  
Robb is expecting this, of course, or not really expecting it because he wasn't expecting to meet him again, but he knew, somewhere in the back of his head, that Theon would be different.  
  
And Theon is. His face is raw and sunburnt from days spent rowing the Atlantic Ocean, his hair longer and more unruly. Worse, though, his skin is drawn tight across his cheekbones, and his mouth is set at a funny sort of curve that makes Robb think it's been too long since he's smiled.  
  
“Hi,” Robb says.  
  
Theon raises a gloved hand in silent greeting. The barista puts out his coffee, and he leaves the shop without another word or another glance at Robb.  
  
But Theon is back. Theon is back, Theon has maybe been back for a long time, and Robb—  
  
Robb should not care. Robb has a girlfriend, and she is beautiful. Robb and Theon stopped loving each other abruptly and angrily and terribly. Theon is a prick who doesn't give a shit about anything but himself. Theon ignored their rules and here he is in Amherst, buying coffee at their favorite coffeeshop, and Robb--  
  
Robb puts his menu down, stands up, charges out of the cafe, and puts a cigarette in his mouth without making the conscious decision to do anything at all. He takes a calming drag, then another, and lights another cigarette when he's done.  
  
“Started chainsmoking, have you?” a voice asks from behind him.  
  
There's a split second where Robb thinks it might be Theon, thinks Theon might apologize and then he can apologize and then they will be fine, but of course it isn't, of course it's Arya, all big eyes and angry mouth.  
  
“You're late,” Robb says.  
  
“Give me a cigarette,” Arya says, ignoring him, and when Robb refuses, snatches the pack out of his coat pocket and lights it with her own lighter.  
  
“Why do you have that?”  
  
Arya shrugs. “Mom said to invite you to dinner.”  
  
“I have a date tonight.”  
  
“Invite her, too.”  
  
“You know Mom can't stand Jeyne.”  
  
“Mom couldn't stand Theon, either,” Arya says. “She's just scared someone's going to take her favorite son away from her.”  
  
“I'm not her--”  
  
“Don't worry,” Arya says. “You don't have to compete with me. I'm not her son. Besides, Sansa's her favorite daughter.”  
  
“Arya--”  
  
Arya grins impishly and puts out her cigarette. “Are you ready to go inside? Or are you just going to stand here giving yourself throat cancer?”  
  
Robb drops the remains of his cigarette, too, puts it out with the toe of his shoe. “Let's go in,” he says. “I've got a table.”  
  
  
  
<<.  
  
The first time Theon winds up in Robb's bed, it's the result of mixing tequila shots (Theon's favorite) with whiskey gingers (Robb's favorite) and very cheap vodka (which Jon and Sam brought over from UMass).  
  
Theon slumps over in Robb's bed at the end of the night, looking a wreck and clutching a trash can.  
  
Robb considers sleeping on the floor, but in the end curls up against Theon. When he wakes up, Theon is still there, though he is bent over the side of the bed, retching into the trash can.  
  
“Tequila, man,” Theon says. “Never again.”  
  
“It was the Svedka,” Robb says sympathetically, passing Theon a bottle of water.  
  
Theon stares at the proffered bottle. “I'm gay,” he blurts suddenly. “Like—I fuck men. Regularly. And with gusto.”  
  
“I knew that already,” Robb says, frowning.  
  
“I just wanted—I wanted you to know. For sure. From me.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“You just spent the night with me.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“People are going to talk.”  
  
Robb shrugs. “Let them.”  
  
  
  
<<.  
  
Robb finds himself watching Theon's mouth not long after that.  
  
It's—it's not super obvious, at first. They're at an econ lecture the week after they get back from Boston, and Theon's mouth is set, brow slightly furrowed, as he scribbles down notes surprisingly diligently.  
  
The thing about Theon's mouth is that most people's mouths naturally curve downwards, maybe because that's how faces are or maybe because people are just sad all the time when no one is paying attention, but the thing about Theon's mouth is, his lips curve ever so slightly upward, like he's in on some joke the rest of the human race doesn't understand.  
  
It's later but not much later that Robb corners Theon in the men's room of the science building and kisses him. Theon gives a strangled sort of laugh, fingers rough against Robb's wrist.  
  
“What are you doing?” he says, still smiling.  
  
“I don't know,” Robb says.  
  
“Was that for real?”  
  
Robb thinks about it, considers telling the truth, sees the way Theon is fucking _smirking_ at him right now and changes his mind. “No,” he says. “I just—no.”  
  
“Good,” Theon says, pressing his forehead against Robb's. “Good. Because that would be—that would be stupid.”  
  
<<.  
  
It rains all summer the first year Robb and Theon are together, great torrential downpours some days, typical New England summer storms others, and on some days there is just a residual mist over everything.  
  
Robb thinks it will mean they don't ever go outside, that they will spend long lazy afternoons lying indoors in air conditioning, away from the rain and heat but not the humidity, but even though they spend one long day watching _Say Anything_ and eating pizza and fucking each other slowly on Theon's bed, Theon drags him to the Massachusetts coast so many times that Robb thinks buying a car would be cheaper than taking their constant train rides to the shore.  
  
“Being landlocked is awful,” Theon tells him one day, when they're pressed against each other on the sand in Gloucester. “It's the worst. It's the fucking worst.”  
  
The beach is deserted, the ocean stormy, and it is sort of miserable out here, but Robb leans over, kisses Theon, and thinks that summer storms are not so bad.  
  
 

>>.  
  
And so it should not surprise Robb that it rains all summer the first year they are apart.  
  
He hides out in Minneapolis, working for a man who puffs on expensive cigarettes all day. He meets Jeyne, whose family lives in Worcester. He spends weekends in Chicago with his parents until his dad opens a Boston office and moves his family east, and he spends a long September working all the time and dating Jeyne and spending weekends in his bed alone with coffee and cheap cereal, always debating calling Theon, always deciding he doesn't want to. It is in Minneapolis that Robb picks up smoking, which is bizarre because it seems like the only people in Minneapolis who smoke are his boss who is from the west coast ( _like Theon_ , Robb does not let himself think), his girlfriend who is from Worcester, and now Robb Stark from Chicago via Amherst.  
  
 

<<.  
  
They make it their goal to play pick up soccer in every country they visit before they are even properly together, and it is in this way that they find themselves on Amherst's lawns barefoot with a soccer ball in November. It hasn't snowed yet, not properly, but the grass is slick, and so they when they play they are vicious. Robb played in high school and has been thinking of trying to walk on to Amherst's team, and one of Theon's uncles played professionally and so raised Theon and Asha to play, and even though it's Asha who is Stanford's star right back and captain and most likely professional prospect, Theon can bend a nasty free kick.  
  
Theon, Robb should not be surprised, plays dirty. He goes for Robb's ankles with the side of his foot, flops around every time Robb brushes him, almost tricks Robb into thinking he's injured him a couple of times, leaps back up and knocks the ball into the bush they've declared the goal. Once he bangs the ball in with his hand and beams at Robb, trots around the field shouting about his hand of god.  
  
“That one doesn't count,” Robb says.  
  
“Why not? Linesman didn't say anything.” Theon indicates a bird with his chin. He's always doing that—indicating things with his chin. Robb glares at him.  
  
“Doesn't matter anyway,” Robb says. “I'm still four goals up.”  
  
“Are you?” Theon says, picking up the ball and bouncing it into the bush with his hands, then doing it again. “Looks like you're only two up now.”  
  
“That's bullshit,” Robb says, and Theon grins when Robb runs toward him and dispossesses him with practiced ease. He's making his way back to the opposite goal when Theon charges into him from the front, sends him sprawling backward into the wet grass.  
  
“Fuck,” Robb says. “Theon, what the _fuck_ —”  
  
Theon is grinning from on top of him, though, and Robb's words catch in his throat.  
  
“I should have been a center back,” Theon says. “But they always played me as a winger 'cause I'm sly.”  
  
His voice is scratchy and raw from shouting all match, and his mouth is still turned upward in that stupid grin. His mouth is _very_ close to Robb's. Robb can feel his breath on his face, and is about to move when Theon winks, leaps back up, takes the ball, and knocks into goal.  
  
“Fucker,” Robb grumbles, getting up without assessing himself for damage and launching a similar assault on Theon, except that he aids it with a casual punch to the ribs.  
  
Theon grins. “Playing dirty, Stark?”  
  
“If I'm going to beat you.”  
  
Theon hits him back, and they struggle there for a while, punching just hard enough to leave bruises, with Theon only occasionally gaining the upper hand. Robb is bigger than him, but he doesn't fight dirty, so Theon gets a good mouthful of the skin on Robb's shoulder at one point and Robb pulls away.  
  
“You're a fucking animal,” he says, making to get off Theon, but Theon seizes the front of his shirt and drags him back down. For a moment, Robb thinks Theon is going to hit him soundly in the face, but then he pulls him closer and sits up a little on his elbows and kisses him. Theon's mouth tastes like gatorade, tastes like winning.  
  
It's a short kiss, and Theon, his face momentarily vulnerable, backs away quickly, looks at Robb's face as if for his reaction. Robb doesn't give Theon the chance to pat him on the cheek, grin, jump up to score again, and pretend this is all some stupid joke—he ducks back down, kisses Theon's mouth again, lets Theon's fingers grip at his waist and lower back.  
  
“We're pretty good,” Robb breathes against Theon's throat. “The Mexicans'll have nothing on us.”  
  
Theon laughs, and it's a breathy sound, dry, almost strangled. “I'm pretty good. But the Mexicans'll kill you.”  
  
*  
  
In Mexico, they sleep in a hostel, get mugged twice, play pickup soccer with some local teenagers, and reintroduce Theon to tequila.  
  
They do not talk about kissing, and they do not kiss again, but Robb dozes off on Theon's shoulder on the plane ride back to Logan and when he wakes up Theon is engrossed in the in-flight entertainment and has repositioned himself so that Robb is leaning on the softest part of his arm.  
  
 

>>.  
  
The next time Robb sees Theon, it is probably both of their faults.  
  
He goes to the same coffeeshop, buys a latte, perches himself on the bench outside, and starts smoking. He makes his way through two cigarettes before Theon comes out and looks down at him.  
  
“Those'll kill you,” Theon says as Robb puts another cigarette in his mouth.  
  
“Really? I hadn't heard.”  
  
Theon stares at him. He talks less now. He smiles less, mostly, but he talks less, too, and it tugs at Robb's gut.  
  
“We decided Massachusetts was mine,” Robb says.  
  
“No we didn't. It was neutral ground.”  
  
“I don't remember making that deal,” Robb says, suddenly irrationally angry. “I told you I wanted Boston--”  
  
“We're not in Boston.”  
  
“I thought you knew I meant surrounding areas too.”  
  
“Why would I think that? I specified everything. Pacific Ocean. The Great Lakes.”  
  
“All you specified were fucking oceans,” Robb says, and puts out his cigarette, makes to leave.  
  
“Wait,” Theon says, but when Robb does Theon doesn't say anything.  
  
“Get the fuck out of Amherst,” Robb says, and then, “or just don't—just stop coming _here_.”  
  
“You don't get this place,” Theon says.  
  
“Fine,” Robb says. “ _Fine._ ”  
  
*  
  
They see each other at the coffeeshop almost daily, because they are both too stubborn to go to a Dunkin Donuts or one of the other dozens of coffeeshops that lines the streets of Amherst.  
  
“D'you think maybe you're being a bit hard-headed?” Sansa asks when she and Robb get coffee one night and Theon flirts loudly with the barista.  
  
“No,” Robb responds, and walks up to the counter to order a scone.  
  
 

<<.  
  
The third time they kiss they've both been drinking.  
  
They're watching football in a bar that doesn't card, and the Patriots have just delivered a sound beating to the Packers, and Robb who is a Bears fan is delighted and Theon who doesn't like football is just happily tipsy, grinning around his pint of beer.  
  
They pay their tab and make to leave with the rest of their friends for a post-game in someone's dorm, but Theon looks so openly happy just then that Robb can't resist anymore, and when they're safely outside in the dark he lunges forward almost predatorily and grips Theon by the back of the neck, kisses him hard.  
  
Theon is motionless for a split second, but then he opens his mouth, gives in to the kiss, moves closer, repositions his mouth, and—  
  
“Fuck,” Robb says, backing away so only their foreheads are pressed together. “Theon.”  
  
“You—you want--”  
  
“ _Yes_ , I want, do _you_ want--”  
  


“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” Theon says, and digs his fingers into Robb's wrist.  
  
They make it to the post-game, eventually, and fall asleep mostly on top of each other on Robb's bed.  
  
 

>>.  
  
Robb is out for a drink with Sansa again the next time he sees Theon, which is also the time they wind up in bed together again and the time Robb finally deletes Theon from his phone.  
  
They are both somewhere past tipsy when it happens, of course, but they are also both a fair way away from absolutely wasted, which Sansa reiterates when they talk on the phone the next morning.  
  
They flirt like two people who don't know each other, but when Theon's fingers dig into Robb's hip it feels like a competition, feels like a dare.  
  
They go to Theon's apartment, which, as it turns out, is the same apartment that used to be TheonandRobb's apartment.  
  
“You haven't moved,” Robb says softly.  
  
Theon looks at him, all big eyes and dark hair, and shrugs. “Asha sublet it for a year, and then she found me other subletters, but now that I'm back--”  
  
“Amherst is mine,” Robb says, and seizes Theon, kisses him so hard their teeth clink against each other and send pain shooting up Robb's face, but neither of them moves to fix it, and for a moment they stand in Theon's doorway, each trying to kiss the other harder.

  
There's a moment, when Theon finally separates and pulls away, just slightly, just enough to tug Robb into the apartment, where Robb wants to say something stupid, something like, _I want to kiss the smile back onto your mouth_ , but then he thinks he doesn't have the right to say that to Theon anymore and then he thinks, very viciously, _fuck Theon_ , and then he does.  
  
It is bizarre when, after they've finished, Theon says, “You can stay if you want. You paid for the bed,” and Robb chokes out a laugh and the shadow of Theon's old grin appears before he turns away, curled up in a ball in the top left corner of the big bed. Robb sleeps like he always does, sprawled all over the place and fitful, and there is a bit of him that is aching to reach out and touch Theon, to unwind him from the position he is in.  
  
He doesn't, though, and braces himself for awkwardness in the morning.  
  
*  
  
But it is not awkward in the morning:  
  
They do not fuck again in or before the shower, but they brush their teeth together, and it feels like three years ago. Theon tosses Robb toothpaste without looking to see where Robb is, and Robb catches it without having any indication that Theon had tossed it. He squeezes some out onto his finger and brushes like that, stupidly, and then helps Theon make coffee in the same way, like they've been doing it for so long they don't have to look anymore.  
  
“It's like riding a bicycle,” Robb says aloud, and Theon looks at him quizzically.  
  
“What is?” he says.  
  
“You,” Robb says, and when Theon's head tilts to the side Robb remembers two things in quick succession: the first is that Theon cannot always know what he is thinking anymore because they've barely spoken in three years; the second is that he has a girlfriend that he loves and wants to marry, and she is meeting him for lunch later.  
  
They drink their coffee in silence, Robb contemplating his failure as a boyfriend and sort of as a man while Theon watches him, and there is still an attraction there but now that they've fucked it's almost like it's all out of Robb's system.  
  
“Sansa told me we just had to fuck and we'd be civil to each other again,” Robb says.  
  
Theon doesn't respond.  
  
“It was nice to see you again,” Robb says. “Thanks for the coffee.”  
  
He sets his mug down and leaves, and Theon does not say anything until he is almost to the door.  
  
Well, Theon doesn't really say anything then, either—he just hits Robb, so soundly that Robb sees stars for a moment and then, breathing hard, leaves without retaliating and lights a cigarette in the elevator.  
  
 

<<.  
  
The first time they fuck is awful.  
  
Theon has insisted on Robb topping, and he says it almost like he's mocking him, says, “I want you inside me,” with his stupid grin sitting there on his face, and Robb doesn't know if it's a joke or not until later that evening, when Theon hands him condoms and lube and lies down on his back and looks at Robb with this ridiculous look in his eyes and doesn't smile.  
  
Robb doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't use enough lube and it's uncomfortable for both of them until he pulls out, peels off the condom, and gives Theon a sloppy blow job.  
  
Theon reciprocates, but he laughs around Robb's cock, and Robb comes quickly and without any trace of dignity.  
  
“We'll try again tomorrow,” Theon says to him, after, when Robb is lying next to him in bed, staring the opposite direction. “Just—we'll use more lube this time, yeah?”  
  
Robb nods, and then Theon bursts into laughter, and for a moment Robb is offended but then he is laughing too, and Theon curls against him, tucks his chin against Robb's neck, and it's not the most comfortable position but Robb moves closer and does not complain.  
  
 

>>.  
  
Jeyne looks at him long and hard after he tells her, her lower lip set stubbornly and one fist clenching and unclenching on the table.  
  
“If you don't love him,” she says, “I won't leave you.”  
  
“I don't love him,” Robb says.  
  
Jeyne's eyes meet his, and she smiles sadly. “I don't believe you.”  
  
She leaves his apartment, and Robb does not move for another hour.  
  
*  
  
His dad does not ask any questions when Robb gives him back his grandmother's ring.  
  
His sisters, however, do:  
  
“Stupid,” Arya tells him when she and Sansa meet him that weekend for dinner. “So _stupid_.”  
  
“You didn't even like Jeyne.”  
  
“I don't like _Theon_.”  
  
“I'm not—it was a one-time thing. I just had to get Theon out of my system.”  
  
“Arya's dating a senior,” Sansa sing-songs, and Arya glowers at her.  
  
 

<<.  
  
He meets Jeyne during his second week in Minneapolis.  
  
She has the lean, muscled legs of a runner but when he first sees her she's got a cigarette in her mouth and big sunglasses on, and there's a moment where he can't reconcile the two, the smoking with the running.  
  
“I'm Jeyne,” she says, and spells it out for him, and then suddenly she makes sense.  
  
“Let me buy you a coffee,” Robb says, and that is how it begins.  
  
*  
  
He decides he wants to marry her two months later. It is morning and he is still in Minneapolis, a city he has grown to hate, but she is lying on her side naked, and her vertebrae are poking out in sharp relief against the early sun peeking through the shades.  
  
There is a moment where for the first time since he and Theon broke up that Robb feels completely and utterly content, and as Jeyne shifts the feeling only intensifies. For the first time in weeks, he is not thinking about Theon or about how much he hates Minneapolis or about how much he misses his surrogate home, the east coast. For the the first time in weeks he exists in the moment, and he reaches for Jeyne just as she wakes up, turns toward him, and smiles sleepily.  
  
 

>>.  
  
The next week of his life is the roughest week of his life since he and Theon broke up.  
  
It's just--  
  
He fell in love with Jeyne for a variety of reasons, but two stick out mostly in his head:  
  
The first was the stupid way she smiled when she smiled properly, both eyes squeezed shut and grin wide, both rows of teeth showing, the front two on the bottom overlapping just a bit and her canines too sharp but fitting together just so.  
  
The second was the way she'd met sad, post-break up Robb Stark and let him press against her when most needed to be pressed up against something, and then let him keep pressing up against her until the thought of losing her made him want to throw up. It happened too quickly, and Robb had been terrified when she told him she loved him and he blurted, “I love you too,” without as much as a moment's consideration.  
  
He is pretty sure he wasn't lying when he said it that first time, or most of the times after, but he hasn't felt very in touch with his emotions since Theon hopped on a row boat and tried to row the Atlantic Ocean, and he has felt even less in touch with his emotions since Theon came back, the skin on two of his fingers all rotted off and one of his teeth missing and scars all over his chest.  
  
Robb did not ask, when they were fucking, what happened to Theon when Theon was lost at sea, and Theon did not volunteer the information.  
  
 

<<.  
  
Theon plays him the Mountain Goats one Wednesday evening when they're in Theon's dorm room doing an econ problem set:  
  
 _The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it's you, and that you're standing in the doorway_ , his laptop sings.  
  
Robb seizes Theon and kisses him and all the tension melts from his body.  
  
Theon fucks Robb for the first time, and it's quick, Robb unused to the sensation and Theon having missed it, and they leave bruises and Robb feels Theon inside him for days after.  
  
(It is not only the first time Robb gets fucked; it is also the first time that Robb babbles against the side of Theon's face, “I love you,” and Theon whispers it back into the crook of Robb's neck, mouth turning upward against Robb's skin, and god, _God_ , Robb thinks as Theon thrusts, there is something perfect about that smile.)  
  
 

>>.  
  
Theon is out of breath the next time Robb sees him, and he looks almost apologetic.  
  
“Robb,” he is panting, having just sprinted several blocks after Robb. “Wait.”  
  
If it were any other ex-anything, Robb would let him off easy, but this is not anyone else. This is _Theon_ , and that means something, even if Robb doesn't want it to anymore.  
  
“I'm not interested,” he says flatly instead.  
  
“Robb, you're like _sand_ ,” Theon says, and he is kissing Robb, suddenly, just out there on the street, and Robb resists for a moment before kissing back, biting down on Theon's lip and then spiting it back out when Theon stiffens.  
  
“I just want to talk,” Theon says. “Can we go to dinner?”  
  
It is the first time Robb thinks Theon has ever wanted to talk, and certainly the first time he's asked Robb out on a date unprompted.  
  
 

<<.  
  
“The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it's you, and you're standing in the doorway,” Robb says to Jeyne one morning when she is quite literally standing in his doorway, leaning against the doorframe in only a t-shirt, glasses on instead of contacts, hip crooked, two mugs of coffee in her hands.  
  
She smiles at him. “Mountain Goats?”  
  
Robb nods, and remembers the first time he'd heard the song, Theon playing it off his laptop and looking up at Robb expectedly. Jeyne comes over, sits down on the bed, offers him one of the mugs. Robb takes it without really seeing it, blinks quickly.  
  
“I used to really like the Mountain Goats,” he says, and Jeyne nods very seriously.  
  
“They're a first love kind of band,” she says, and Robb does not respond.  
  
 

>>.  
  
As it turns out, Arya's senior is not a senior at all.  
  
Gendry is a mechanic in Amherst, the same mechanic who has fixed Robb's car on three separate occasions and who barely speaks even when prompted.  
  
Robb finds this out over coffee with Sansa and Jon. Sansa keeps looking at Jon meaningfully as she explains, but Jon shakes his head reluctantly.  
  
“We should give Arya her privacy,” he says.  
  
“No,” Sansa says happily. “We are going to _gossip_!”  
  
Robb is all for this, and he listens attentively as Sansa spills everything she knows about Gendry, whose mother may or may not have been a prostitute and whose father may or may not have been the governor of New Jersey.  
  
“Anyway,” Sansa continues. “The point is, we can't tell Mom.”  
  
“She'd hate him,” Jon agrees, though of course this might at least partially be a reaction to Catelyn's dislike for her husband's dead sister's son.  
  
Sansa glances up, then, and stiffens instantly. “Don't look,” she says under her breath. “Just don't—”  
  
“What?” Robb says, and looks.  
  
It's Theon, of course it's Theon, and he's looking strung out and he's got a cut on his mouth and there's that guy, that _prick_ , with his arm around Theon's shoulder and Robb does not. Care. He doesn't care.  
  
“It's fine,” Robb says, and yet finds himself unable to look away.  
  
“Go talk to him,” Sansa urges, but Robb shakes his head.  
  
“He's—a prick.”  
  
“He is,” Jon agrees. “But he's your prick.”  
  
“He isn't.” Robb looks away at last, and there is a moment where he really, really misses Jeyne, her big eyes and stupid teeth. “He's _Ramsay's_ prick.”  
  
“Do you want to leave?”  
  
“No. I just—no.”  
  
Sansa goes up to get a pastry and coffee to go for her roommate and Jon gives him a long, hard look.  
  
“I'm fine,” Robb says.  
  
Jon shrugs, nods. “All right,” he says. A pause. “Do you think—it seems like Sansa's coming around.”  
  
“Smith's doing good things for her.”  
  
“Being away from Auntie Catelyn's doing good things for her,” Jon says, and Robb is surprised at the bitterness in his voice and then thinks he shouldn't be surprised at all.  
  
“Let's go,” Sansa says, and Robb allows his desire for a cigarette to overcome his pride and follows her out of the coffeeshop.  
  
 

<<.  
  
Theon has his tongue pressed against the underside of Robb's cock in this ridiculous way that makes Robb fucking _whimper_ so stupidly that Theon laughs around him just as he's coming.  
  
“You look so stupid with cum on your face,” Robb says spitefully when he's finished, but it comes out breathless and when Theon falls back on their bed next to him he's grinning and Robb kisses the place where his cum spilled out of Theon's mouth. It's salty, and Theon is still grinning, and Robb--  
  
“I'm going to make so much fun of you for that sound later,” Theon says.  
  
“Are you?” Robb asks, wrapping a hand around Theon's cock and positioning himself just over it.  
  
“I suppose I could be willfully ignorant,” Theon says as Robb reaches for the lube on his nightstand.  
  
Theon's hand snakes up, pulls Robb down on top of him. Theon's mouth finds Robb's neck, and Robb laughs.  
  
“You're perfect at that—you're perfect,” Robb says, and Theon shudders against him, laughs into his neck.  
  
“You smell like my soap,” Theon says, and Robb reaches the lube at last.  
  
>>.  
  
“Let's go to dinner,” Robb says the next time he sees Theon, when Theon is alone, a new bruise blooming under his left eye. “I mean—yes. To your invitation from before.”  
  
Theon looks up at him like a scared puppy, mouth set in a line. He doesn't respond for a moment, and Robb almost repeats himself, but then Theon moves in close, fingers hovering just over Robb's waist, so close Robb can feel the heat. Robb shivers.  
  
“I can only do tonight,” Theon says, and Robb says yes.  
  
<<.  
  
They fall apart because Robb works all the time and Theon drinks too much. Theon wants to row the Atlantic Ocean and Robb thinks it's too dangerous, and Robb is ambitious and young and working himself half to death and barely having enough time to say good night when he comes home before falling asleep and Theon misses him.  
  
Worry and absence turn into bitterness for them like they do for so many other couples, and it isn't long before they're snapping at each other all the time and Theon is staying out at bars as late as Robb stays at work.  
  
When Theon sleeps with someone else, Robb isn't surprised, and when Theon says, “Our relationship was already over,” Robb doesn't disagree.  
  
 

>>.  
  
“You left me,” Theon says, and it is accusatory and his eyes are angry, and Robb slams his fist down on the table so hard the person at the next table over looks at them in shock.  
  
“Don't fucking do that to me,” Robb says, and it comes out a snarl. _“You--_ you--did you think I could ever look at you again without imagining you and that prick?”  
  
“You never wanted me anymore. You never—we never even _talked_ anymore, Robb.”  
  
“I could never not want you,” Robb says, and catches the present tense just as it slips out of his mouth.  
  
Theon looks down. The bruise under his eye is unnaturally bright purple, and he has not taken his gloves off. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I never should have—I'm sorry.”  
  
They eat silently, and it is not until they have already paid and are leaving that Robb takes Theon's hand, almost on a whim, almost without thinking about it.  
  
Theon flinches away, then relaxes, puts his hand back in Robb's.  
  
“What happened on the Atlantic Ocean?” Robb asks, and Theon closes his eyes.  
  
“Ramsay happened before the Atlantic Ocean, and on the Atlantic Ocean, and after the Atlantic Ocean,” he says, and he takes his hand back, peels back his glove so Robb sees the rotted skin on his fingers, and Robb's stomach turns.  
  
“That _prick_ ,” he says. “I should have—I should have been with you. Where was I? I shouldn't have—I'm sorry.”  
  
“I saw him,” Theon says. “I—after we--”  
  
There is a moment when Robb hates himself, and he takes out a cigarette without thinking about it.  
  
Theon takes it out of his mouth. “These'll kill you,” he says, and grins.


End file.
